


Lonely

by lunar_peach



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Explainations, Is it sad? Hell yeah, Long-Haired Victor Nikiforov, POV Victor Nikiforov, Reflection, Young Victor Nikiforov, am i projecting?? Maybe so, come on now, ft., my works always are, puppy makkachin, wrote this @2am idk why
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 10:24:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15928481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunar_peach/pseuds/lunar_peach
Summary: Victor thinks things through and makes a decision.





	Lonely

**Author's Note:**

> so i debated putting this in the drabble collection but i decided not to since its 1k+ anyway have fun

Victor sinks into the water.

Beyond the bathroom doors, Makkachin lays in his bed, cuddled up against one of his hoodies, waiting until the moment Victor would emerge again in the way all puppies did. He’d only had him for three weeks and already they couldn’t live without each other. He should have been in a good mood. He had Makkachin and a brand new national title. Things were wonderful.

Or maybe they weren’t. He couldn’t decide, but he guessed that if it was so easy for him to unravel, things probably weren’t so great. He came apart at the oddest times, but at least they held a pattern.

It was a look in the mirror. That was all it took usually. 

A passing look– nothing too special– after practice or a shower, and if he was terribly unlucky, before a competition. That was all it took sometimes. A single moment of concentration when he would look at his hair or his face or the way the pink in his cheeks was fading with every passing day. His pixie face was growing– longer and fuller. Duller. It made his skin burn, from the center of his chest to the tips of his fingers. It was the most embarrassing thing he could do. To grow old. To waste away. Get bigger. Or smaller.

Whatever ‘duller’, ‘old’, ‘bigger’, or ‘smaller’ meant to him at the time.

Or maybe not even to him. To everyone else.

But truly it was worst before practice because somehow Yakov would know. Even if he was landing jumps and going through programs seamlessly, he’d know. Somehow. Maybe it was his face. Or his voice when he’d answer “nothing is wrong” in that snippy way teenagers do. It wasn’t like he had an actual answer anyway.

Victor always had a hard time figuring himself out. He was the most aware, unaware person to ever exist. He was sure of it.

This intuition of Yakov’s was the reason he was taking a bath at 5 pm, rather than his usual 8 pm shower. He’d been sent home early to ‘collect’ himself after having thrown his guards at a gaggle of boys that just so happened to be discussing ‘another Victor’ while laughing in passing. Usually, Victor wouldn’t have cared, but he’d been on edge for days and days.

The skating season was coming to an end and already people were betting on him faltering in his abilities as he moved on to the Senior level. He’d been working himself to the bone trying to make sure that wouldn’t happen.

But that wasn’t all that had set him on edge. There were also a number of articles critiquing his weight and appearance, the way he dressed and styled his hair, in a way he hadn’t quite experienced before. Sure, there had been criticisms of all those things in the past, but now that all eyes were on him, it was as if every media outlet had turned their back on him. Some had even begun to call his performances tired and boring— childish even, claiming it was time for him to grow alongside his programs. The programs he spent months and months perfecting.

Part of him felt they had a point. Maybe it was time for him to change his performances. He had already changed himself, growing four inches taller just over that past summer. He’d gone through things and fallen in love and began to live alone— Victor had changed. So why was he so adamant about keeping his skating the same? Why was he still attached to the pure fairy image the world had pushed on him? He didn’t even like it anymore. He’d grown tired of it. What was he so scared of?

He could feel them all getting tired. The crowd. The press. The judges. Even Yakov. But they wouldn’t tell him to change. It was up to him to alone, but he couldn’t stop. Victor knew that if he didn’t change, they’d all be gone sooner or later. Moved on to the next great thing.

He had to keep them on the edge of their seats. He had to keep their eyes on him. But how? How would that ever happen if he refused to change?

He had all of these things bottled up inside. Stuck right in the middle of his throat. He couldn’t eat. Couldn’t talk about them. All he could do was think and try to figure it out on his own.

Tears began to well in his eyes, hot and thick as they slid down his cheeks. He turned to look at a mirror placed on the bathroom door. His mistake was repeated. 

Alone and crying, covered in bath bubbles, hair tied back in a tired bun, he looked at himself longer than he wanted to. Not bothering to wipe them away or even to dry himself off, Victor stood and draped a bathrobe over himself, tying it furiously at the front.

He yanked the hair tie holding his hair together out as he moved toward the sink, where a pair of scissors rested on the counter.

The soap and water began to pool around his feet. He was crying harder now, but not audibly. It was a trick he’d learned over the years. All he had to do was bite down on his tongue. That was all.

The first cut was the hardest, but the best. As soon as the first bits of hair fell to the floor Victor felt the pressure go from his shoulders. In chasing that initial reaction, he kept going, all around his head until he was left with a messy bob of uneven silver strands. He touched the tips, just to make sure he had really done it.

Victor still wasn’t satisfied. So he cut more and more until it was practically a close shave. He’d have to go to a hair stylist to fix it up, but that was fine. It was okay.

Placing the scissors down gently, Victor unrobed and stepped back into his bath. He wasn’t crying anymore. He still felt vacant.

At least it wasn’t as much as before.

That next morning, he would go to a salon before practice. He would show up to the rink an hour late and Yakov would ask what he had done and if he knew what time it was. Victor would shrug and smile at him, and say something clever about how he’d gotten bored with his old hair. And in the midst of the yelling, the new him would be born. The one prone to impulsivity.

The one the world had to keep watching.

**Author's Note:**

> hello fellow teens leave a comment or kudos or sumn


End file.
